OCI Migration Architect Pro flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

7 Rs migration framework

Retire, Retain, Rehost, Replatform, Repurchase, Refactor, Relocate. Used to classify each application's migration approach based on business value, technical fit, and effort.

Migration wave planning

Grouping applications by dependency, criticality, and cutover window. Wave 0 is typically low-risk or non-production, reducing risk before critical workloads move.

RTO and RPO

Recovery Time Objective is maximum acceptable downtime; Recovery Point Objective is maximum acceptable data loss. They drive replication and standby design choices.

Application dependency mapping

Identifying north-south user traffic and east-west service-to-service flows. Missed east-west dependencies are a leading cause of failed cutovers.

OCI Cloud Adoption Framework

Structured guidance across architecture, security, operations, cost, people, and governance pillars. Used to organize migration plans and landing zone design.

Compartment design

Compartments are the primary OCI policy and cost boundary. Design by environment, business unit, or workload tier to simplify IAM and budgeting.

IAM policy syntax

Allow <subject> to <verb> <resource-type> in <compartment> where <condition>. OCI IAM policies are additive; there is no explicit deny rule.

Dynamic groups

IAM groups whose membership is defined by matching rules on resource attributes, such as instance compartment ID. Enable instance principals without stored credentials.

Security zones

OCI Cloud Guard feature that detects and can deny risky configurations such as public buckets, unencrypted volumes, and open security lists at compartment or tenancy level.

Hub-and-spoke VCN

Landing zone network pattern with a central VCN for shared services (DNS, bastion, inspection) and peered or DRG-attached spoke VCNs per workload.

Flexible compute shapes

OCI VM shapes that let you choose OCPU and memory independently within limits. Useful for right-sizing during migration rather than after.

Custom image import

Bring-your-own-image capability supporting QCOW2, VMDK, and OVA formats. Enables rehosting VMs from other clouds or on-premises into OCI Compute.

Cloud-init user data

Boot-time configuration script passed to an instance. Automates hostname, agents, and application bootstrap, reducing manual post-migration steps.

Oracle Cloud Agent

Agent running on OCI instances providing plugins for monitoring, management, vulnerability scanning, and OS management. Enable on migrated instances for operations.

Instance pools and autoscaling

Groups of identical instances managed together. Attach a load balancer and define scaling policies based on CPU or schedule for elastic application tiers.

Autonomous Database target fit

Best for OLTP and analytics workloads where automated patching, scaling, and tuning are acceptable. Less suitable when full OS or database control is required.

Data Pump migration

Logical migration using expdp and impdp. Requires compatible character sets and sufficient dump file storage; suitable for cross-platform and cross-version moves.

GoldenGate replication

Logical replication tool enabling near-zero downtime migrations. Requires supplemental logging on source tables and compatible extract/replicat versions.

Zero Downtime Migration

OCI orchestration service for database migration. Online mode uses Data Guard or GoldenGate to minimize downtime; offline mode uses backup and restore.

Autonomous Database wallet

Credential file enabling mTLS connections to Autonomous Database. Configure network ACLs and private endpoints to restrict access to approved sources.

Exadata XTTS

Transportable Tablespaces method for cross-endian platform migration to Exadata. Complements Data Guard for physical standby-based migration strategies.

Block Volume performance tiers

Lower Cost, Balanced, Higher Performance, and Ultra High Performance tiers set VPUs per GB, determining IOPS and throughput for attached volumes.

Object Storage tiers

Standard, Infrequent Access, and Archive tiers balance cost and retrieval latency. Used for backups, unstructured data, and Data Transfer Service targets.

Data Transfer Service

Physical appliance for large datasets (TB to PB). Load data on-premises, ship the device to OCI, and ingest into Object Storage.

Storage Gateway

Hybrid appliance presenting on-premises NFS, SMB, or iSCSI backed by Object Storage. Useful for incremental migration of file data.

File Storage mount target

NFSv3 file system accessed through a mount target in a VCN subnet. Export options restrict access by client CIDR for shared workload data.

FastConnect vs Site-to-Site VPN

FastConnect provides dedicated private connectivity with predictable latency. Site-to-Site VPN uses IPSec over the internet, suitable for lower-bandwidth or backup paths.

Dynamic Routing Gateway

OCI gateway attaching VCNs to on-premises networks via FastConnect or VPN. DRG v2 supports transit routing between VCNs and on-premises.

NSG vs security list

Network Security Groups apply at the VNIC level for granular east-west control. Security lists apply at the subnet level for coarse boundaries.

Service gateway

VCN gateway enabling private access to OCI services such as Object Storage without traversing the public internet. Reduces exposure and egress cost.

Cutover runbook

Ordered steps for pre-cutover checks, freeze window, DNS or connection switch, smoke tests, rollback trigger, and post-cutover monitoring, each with owner and timestamp.

Post-migration validation

Confirming login, critical transactions, batch jobs, integrations, performance against baseline, and data integrity before decommissioning the source environment.